mbleib

I've never seen that scaling before. Very interesting. Does it mean that I write at a college entry level? I was actually a literature major. I may not be all that techy, but I do pride myself on my writing, wordchoice and grammar. Thanks, rschroeder​ for the feedback. Much appreciated.

I don't advocate the firing of an employee for putting a vendor through their paces. I do believe that some of these exercises can be written off as the "Cost of doing business." When it becomes a habit, or a pattern, that's when things become clumsy and an issue. However, your position is, in my opinion, a good way to…

You're completely right, KL... I find that empathy, from any direction, validates someone's feelings, and makes their difficulties far more palatable. Actually, I feel that this is a life-skill that few really have.

Yeah, you've hit on an issue. Microsoft OS's and Applications will demand all the RAM you give them. The issue is always that they don't like to purge memory in use once they grab it. I've seen examples, btw, of SQL apps that work more efficiently when granting less memory. Still, until these platforms are more elegantly…

of course your model is far different than ours. You've mandated that you'll help regardless of whether the bill can be covered. We are not. There is a limit to our patience, our willingness, and truly, we are not pro-bono. However, that being said, the judgement call is not incorrect. All these circumstances should be…

It doesn't seem obvious if or when anything else will fall away. What does appear clear, though, is that these decisions are being made with care and deliberate consideration.

All coding brings along with it some vulnerability. I've seen a new class of code security software, most notably Fortify, where the code as it's being developed, and before it gets rolled into the code master. In this methodology, we find that the vulnerabilities are caught early, and never reach it into code. But you're…

I read a lot. One of the authors I enjoy is Jeffrey Deaver, who's most recent book dealt with the IOT world, and security patches chosen not to implement. In this case the device was embedded in an escalator. By hacking into this device, the perpetrator was able to leverage his access to murder his victim. Just a little…

Thanks for the feedback. I've also had these experiences and am glad that you have had them as well... It's always nice to be validated, right? Today, I think that FusionIO is a pricey solution that can be addressed in different ways, but I'm fairly confident that at the time, you'd solved it and beyond.

I've known both good and bad project managers. The bad almost always fall into this category. I've had a number of them drop in and really screw things up.

Couldn't agree more. The phrase Never get complacent has been a mantra for me throughout my career.

@BrianJ I do agree, and in my experience, the best organizations don't unilaterally make decisions, but do poll the IT group for opinions. Even better, when I'm doing my discovery from a reseller perspective, these key individuals should be in the room, offer up their painpoints to help to guide the conversation. It can…

So true, byrona​. And, what works for one environment doesn't necessarily work for another.

that was truly my experience. Fortunately, I was there on a contract, and not as an employee.

I got my first cert in 1989. It was a Netware CNE on v.2.11. Means a lot today, right?

And with any project, defining both goals, and metrics for what "Success" means are critical aspects.

Couldn't agree more. As software becomes more all-encompassing, like for example the vSphere suite, siloing becomes more of an inhibitor than an opportunity. Used to be that our technology leads needed to know as much as possible in their categories, and held onto that information as if it were capital. But today, in…

I tend to be critical of myself, actually. Having spent so much time on the customer side, I know what I would not have been willing to tolerate, or have any patience for from that side.

Well said, Peter.

I couldn't agree more. A perfect example of the "Words mean things" mantra is "Software Defined." To me, this phrase is so open and so much a variable that again, everybody and their brother has adapted it, with no regard for any actual meaning.

Conceptually, exactly the same. Where you place your sandbox, particularly if all the variables are equivalent, is not nearly as important as not having one. However, if your sandbox is in an architecture that is completely different than your own, virtualized on AWS rather than vSphere, for example, differing networking…

Thanks, buddy. To me, I like to look at each day as an opportunity to do something, anything, to benefit yourself, or someone else. Whether that's writing something, working out, even vacuuming or doing laundry. And a day with that thing is an opportunity missed.

Wait 'til you read my next posting. I think we're thinking along the same lines.

My IT career started in 1986, as I was tasked with managing the IT department of a Radio Shack. I quickly learned how to replace 5.25" floppy drives, etc... It was the beginning of the PC platform, clones, etc... I too, got my first cert as a CNE, in Netware 2.11. Kept that one up until v5.

Without a project plan, the vendor has no commitments, and the customer has no idea how to tie the vendor to a timeline. Often an SOW doesn't go far enough. But I completely agree,

Thanks for making note of this. You're right, of course, that FT and HA are confused more often than not. More likely, FT is either impossible, or prohibitively expensive, and thus a decision is made. It's only when a hiccup of downtime occurs that the decision is lamented.

‌II'll restate a point where it comes to cost. Often an organization has differing buckets and budgets where it comes to costs. To reconcile the capex investment against the opex is something a CIO needs to do regularly and often the opex is easier. Therefore hosting or cloud based services get more play in an environment…

And the issues are often brand new, but of course no less complex. Couldn't agree more.

This is precisely the rationale for a CDN solution. Ideally, your reliance on the cloud provider for data restoration will be small, as there are likely a majority of those files that will be cached on the brick device, or will still be available in storage on-prem. The sheer knowledge based on robust metadata tables means…

My worst experience along these lines had to do with a large banking customer in Chicago. I finished my task a bit early, and having a bit of time, I pitched in on a task that some other coworkers had been doing, but had taken a break. Well, the customer arrived, saw me there, asked what I was doing, to which I offered the…